I can’t let anything go to waste, which I how I came up with this fruit butter concoction of mangoes, apricots, and peaches – sunshine fruits!
August – perhaps the most perfect time of the year. Locally, instead of lions and tigers and bears (oh my!), August brings berries and late apricots and peaches. Since the grocery stores are also full of mangoes of every size and shape, and I can’t resist a sweet mango, several make their way to my kitchen. So, when a big box of peaches arrived on my doorstep, courtesy of the Washington State Fruit Commission Canbassador program, I knew it was time to create some sunshine in a jar. I gathered the last of the drooping apricots, some leftover mangoes, and a few ripe peaches, brightened the whole thing with lime juice, and got busy making fruit butter.
What is a Canbassador?
As a Canbassador my job is to make all kinds of wonderful preserved Washington fruit items and then write about them. I must say, it’s one of the best “jobs” I have ever held.
What is Fruit Butter?
Fruit butter is a soft spread similar to jam or preserves. I particularly like making fruit butters for two reasons:
- Fruit butters are lower in sugar than other soft spreads.
- You don’t have to worry about fruit butters “setting.” There is no setting point when making fruit butter, the mixture is just cooked down to your desired thickness.
Find out all the details about fruit butter on my previous post.
You can also find out about finding the jam setting point on this previous post.
Do You Have the Right Amount of Fruit?
The recipe below includes the amounts of each fruit I used when making Sunshine Fruit Butter. However, if you have fewer or more of each particular fruit available, feel free to adjust the amounts. For example, if you have 8 large peaches but only 5 apricots, don’t stress! Use what you have. Yes, every batch will taste different that way, but it will all be lip-smacking good – I guarantee.
How Much Sugar Should I Use?
Here is the real genius of making fruit butter; measure your pureed fruit. Add half as much sugar. When I made this recipe, I had 4 cups of purée, thus I added 2 cups of sugar. If you end up with 5 cups of purée add 2 ½ cups of sugar. Conversely, if you have 3 cups of purée add 1 ½ cups of sugar. Fruit butters are easily adjustable.
- 1 ½ large mangos, peeled and chopped
- 5 medium peaches, peeled and chopped
- 12 apricots, pitted and quartered
- 2 Tablespoons lime juice
- 2 cups sugar
- Place fruit in a large saucepan and cook over low heat until soft, adding small amounts of water if necessary to prevent scorching.
- Puree fruit in a blender or food processor or using an immersion blender.
- Measure puree.
- Return puree to saucepan - you should have about 4 cups of puree. Add lime juice and sugar.
- Cook over medium-low heat, stirring often until mixture has thickened. This could take as little as 15 minutes, or as long as an hour – depending on the size of your saucepan and today’s humidity.
- Ladle into hot, clean jars leaving about ¼ inch head space. Top with the two-piece lids and rings, and process in a water bath for 10 minutes.
Full disclosure: This recipe was made with peaches I received from the Washington State Fruit Commission.
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